Review of David Lynch's Elephant Man

Elephant Man was a very good film. I thought the performances and dialogue were extraordinary. John Hurt and Anthony Hopkins turn in performances that garnered Oscar noms, too bad this film didn't win any Oscars. It should have.

I'm in the midst of a David Lynch film festival. I have tasked myself with watching all of his films. I just bought the lime green collectors set off of amazon.com and am getting through all of them, from his earliest works up to his last movies Inland Empire. I plan on reviewing each film, then writing a blog devoted to analyzing Lynch's film ovuere.

There are many good things about Elephant Man; the performances, as I mentioned above, the writing is very good, and the cinematography is very well done as well. The film is shot in black and white which gives it a bleak, art house cinema feel. Throughout the film we see the two sides of Victorian society. On one side is the exploiters, those who want to profit from the Elephant Man as a freak. There is his master, Bytes, and later on the nightsman from the hospital. Both seek to exploit John Merrick for their personal gain. On the other side is the Doctor and polite Victorian society. They seek to save John Merrick from exploitation and destitution which his mired in when the good doctor rescues him from squalor.

Throughout the film I tried to guess what would happen. Would John Merrick end up peacefully? Or would he die a bad death at the hands of his former master? In the end Lynch fades out on a Merrick who is quietly settling in for sleep. In reality the real John Merrick died at 27, possibly from suicide. I knew that his former master would make a repeat appearance. I just didn't know how or when.

Of course the fulcrum point of the film comes when John Merrick escapes from servitude in the circus and makes it back to London. He is then discovered, runs away, and is cornered by a crowd of people and the police. It is here that he gives his famous lines, "I am not an animal. I am a human being." That is the best, most famous, line from the film.

This was Lynch's first mainstream film. It was his big break into Hollywood filmmaking. It was his first film in which he worked with famous actors like Anthony Hopkins. I think he turned in a good effort. Especially in revealing the Elephant Man which he does bit by bit. It is not until well into the film that we get full facial on the Elephant Man. Several other shots are framed nicely. Yet, it doesn't have the "Lynchian" sequences or ending that come in his later films like Blue Velvet and the LA trilogy.